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Languages everywhere are dying; it is estimated that one language is driven to extinction every 14 days -- and that's despite an increase in the number of languages supported by the internet. But is the lack of language diversity online accelerating language death or simply reflecting what's happening in the offline world?

There are currently around 7,100 languages in use, but 90 percent of these are spoken by less than 100,000 people. Some are only used by the inhabitants of remote villages, while others -- such as the Peruvian language Taushiro -- are thought to only be spoken by one person.

History suggests that language loss, much like language change, is inevitable. But understanding the cause of this loss is complicated. According to Ethnologue, a catalogue of all the world's known living languages, 1,519 currently living languages are at risk of death, with a further 915 said to be dying.

Alliance for Linguistic Diversity

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Meanwhile, the internet, much like the written word, struggles to reflect the linguistic diversity of the spoken word. According to the UN, just 500 languages are used online, with Google search supporting 348, Wikipedia 290, Facebook 80, Twitter 28 and LinkedIn 24. While those numbers have increased in recent years, they now appear to be plateauing. In terms of volume of languages, the internet is reaching saturation.

Despite an increasing diversity of languages online, English is still dominant. Of the 10 million most popular websites, 55.2 percent are in English. The only other languages to make much of a mark are French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish -- ranging between four and 5.8 percent of those websites.

The internet's western bias is best understood when considering Hindi, a native language for some 310 million people worldwide. Despite being the fourth most spoken native language, less than 0.1 percent of the 10 million most popular websites are in Hindi. Hindi's problem is not unique; grouped together, the Chinese language is used on just 2.4 to 2.8 percent of websites, despite having an estimated 1.2 billion native speakers.

And it isn't just the words -- the symbols used to write words online are also problematic. Many of the internet's estimated 3.2 billion users can't read or understand Latin text, so www.facebook.com is meaningless and hard to remember. The creation of the Internationalised Domain Name system, which allows for web addresses to be displayed in Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Tamil, Hebrew and others, is starting to make the internet more easily understandable around the world. It might seem trivial, but only having domain names available in the Latin alphabet skews the balance of power in favour of old, established economies.

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Understanding how to best represent linguistic diversity online remains a major challenge. Facebook estimates that making the internet useful for 80 percent of the world's population only requires content to be available in 92 languages. Wikipedia is getting close, with 52 languages supporting 100,000 articles or more. But it would be wrong, not to say pointless, for the internet to support every single living spoken language.

According to Giuseppe Longobardi, a professor from the department of language and linguistic science at the University of York, the internet is ill-suited to support small, already dying languages. He explains that many of these languages are only spoken by small, village communities who would never use the internet to communicate with other native speakers.

"Hindi can expand its use on the internet, but it is not in danger of extinction," Longobardi tells WIRED. "Several Brazilian or Australian native languages are in danger, but cannot be rescued by the internet because their speakers are already too few to productively visit websites."

For Longobardi, language diversity online is a reflection of how a multilingual world communicates. Small languages will remain small, while a core of widely-spoken languages will continue to dominate the internet. "Precisely because the internet encompasses and affects a small number of languages, it may even expand the diversity of the language used beyond current limits, but will never resurrect the languages and dialects which are dying," he explains.

But while it is arguably important that minority and endangered languages survive, it isn't feasible that they all become languages of the internet. According to Friederike Luepke, professor of language documentation and description at SOAS, University of London, understanding multilingualism is key. "By far the majority of the world's population is multilingual, and most people do not read and write small languages but only the official languages of their countries or languages of wider communication," Luepke tells WIRED. "The internet should support these communities in their need for symbolic recognition while developing communication strategies that take account of their actual practised pattern of multilingualism."

Rather than depriving smaller languages of a voice, Luepke believes the internet might actually be creating new linguistic diversity, albeit in a way that resists easy measurement. "In particular on social media, where users cultivate a register that is written but very reminiscent of oral communication, multilingual speakers draw in very creative fashion on their entire multilingual repertoire, but in a way that defies easy categorisation of language," she says.

On social media, the boundaries between different languages are becoming blurred. As speakers move away from standard, traditional languages and their rules of grammar and spelling break down, social media can foster multilingualism and support linguistic diversity. "This could be a model for the future," Luepke argues. But concerns about linguistic diversity online miss the real issue: access. In areas such as West Africa people aren't offline because they can't read the language, they are offline because of poor infrastructure and a high cost of entry. "The real issue is that the vast majority of people worldwide [are] still excluded from internet access in the first place," Luepke says. "Mobile phone technology is going to be decisive in offering internet in a more equitable manner, but it is still far from closing this really worrying gap."
Update 28/09/15, 10:37: This article originally stated that 900 languages had been driven to extinction since 2012. Exact figures are hard to gauge, but it would be more accurate to say one language goes extinct every 14 days.

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Languages are dying, but is the internet to blame?

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Languages everywhere are dying; it is estimated that one language is driven to extinction every 14 days -- and that's despite an increase in the number of languages supported by the internet. But is the lack of language diversity online accelerating language death or simply reflecting what's happening in the offline world?

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Matty Matheson's "Guaranteed To Get You Laid" Lasagna

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Digital is a powerful medium for brands. It can also be an effective conduit for change. With societies and people across the world facing many challenges, campaigns that heighten awareness can help to change lives for the better.

Due to its interactive and real-time nature, digital creates the opportunity for people to be more open and connected to each other. As the applications become increasingly easy to understand and monitor, online-savvy organizations are taking a digital approach to spreading messages, attract support for causes and raise funds.

In this article, we explore 5 digital campaigns that successfully use online platforms to inform, challenge and bring about change.

Mental health disorders affect a large population, globally. A study conducted by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration concluded that every year, about 42.5 million American adults suffer from mental illness such as depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

Globally, 300 million people suffer from depression and it's clear that mental illness treatments and solutions need refinement. And this is exactly what Stanford University set out to do with their chatbot, Woebot.

As an automated conversational agent (think chat program), Woebot is designed to monitor a user's mood and then teach coping mechanisms.

Merging technology and cognitive behavior therapy, the chatbot uses daily conversations to asks people about their emotional state and things going on in their lives. From these conversations, Woebot discusses mental health and wellness. Woebot also sends videos and other useful tools customized to the user's current situation.

The app's usage has significantly reduced anxiety and depression in those aged 18-28 in comparison to a control group. In addition, interactions are up 50% month-on-month in just a year with 2 million messages exchanged between bot and user on Facebook Messenger.

Illiteracy is a global crisis that impacts everyone. However, with the abundance of other, more visible crisis happening, illiteracy is often forgotten. And, if the pervasiveness of illiteracy is invisible, it's not likely to be addressed.

Project Literacy notes that 750 million people cannot read this sentence, which is more than the population of Europe. That breaks down to roughly 1 in every 10 people in the world. Additionally, Project Literacy measures the economic impact of illiteracy at $1.19 trillion a year.

With that said, the organization exists to bring the power of words to everyone. Their goal is to ensure every child born can grow up to be a literate adult by 2030.

To raise awareness Project Literacy launched the targeted marketing campaign Alphabet of Illiteracy. The campaign is an insight-driven platform aimed at millennials who are more likely to spread the word through social media than older generations.

Project Literacy evaluates the impact of their program, annually. In the most recent annual report, their total reach through media is expected to climb to 3 billion and their total online community is expected to grow to over 250,000 members.

It's been long understood that communication during a disaster is far from perfect. Often, there are lapses between first responders on a local or national level, and the issue only magnifies when a situation reaches a global scale.

So, the natural evolution of communication in times of need is social media, which has already proven to be successful. An example of social coordination during a natural disaster is J.J. Watt's Hurricane Harvey Relief campaign. Damages were estimated at almost $200 billion dollars while millions of Americans lost their homes and were forced onto the streets or into homeless shelters. But in the peak of the crisis, numerous individuals and organizations bound together for change, one effort had a huge impact post-disaster.

An American football player for the Houston Texan's, J.J. Watt launched a fund on YouCaring.com to raise money for Hurricane Harvey victims. His initial goal was to reach $200,000. Soon, his campaign went viral on social media. In total, Watt's efforts raised more than $37 million for Hurricane Harvey Relief, one of the most successful campaigns for charity in the United States to date.

Millie Dresselhaus may not be a known name in wider society, but the new digital campaign by General Electric (GE) is aiming to put her on the map as the poster woman for science.

As the first woman to win the National Medal of Science in Engineering, Millie's achievements are being used to celebrate female scientists to inspire girls to become scientists in the "What If Scientists Were Celebrities?" campaign.

According to research by GE, just 13-24% of IT and engineering programs on a global scale include women and less than a third enter the ranks of senior leadership. The aim of the campaigns is to change that by highlighting the fact that the achievements of female scientists should overshadow those of celebrity culture.

There are people out there who have done remarkable things and deserve admiration and adulation and holding up those women as role models is a really fun way to shine a light on what we're calling balancing the equation and addressing what is this industry-wide challenge of getting more women in STEM - Linda Boff, GE's CMO

The ultimate goal of the campaign is to have 20,000 women in technical roles by 2020 growing the representation of women by 36%. As a result of the #Balancethe Equation hashtag and its GE-girls.com website, the company has amassed thousands of retweets and comments.

Through its Love Has No Labels campaign, the U.S. Ad Council is professing a clear message - be aware of the biases you didn't even know you had.

These biases - known as implicit - refer to the attitudes to people or stereotypes without any conscious knowledge. Unfortunately, implicit biases are pervasive, which means they affect us all. The aim of the campaign was to urge the public to educate themselves and watch for biases when they surface. Through social networks, Love Has No Labels encourages people to accept all communities and appreciate them regardless of religion, race, age, gender, sexuality, and ability.

Though launched three years ago, members of the community are still active today. The longevity of the activity is, in and of itself, a victory. Each week, members of the community upload visual reminders that "love has no labels" to the campaign's accompanying faces of love app.

As a result, over 1 billion impressions have been generated while social accounts have:

12k Twitter followers

250K followers on Facebook

14.5K followers on Instagram

In total, their social numbers are equivalent to bounding together a small city for change.

We already know that digital is a powerful platform for brands. And, now marketers are starting to understand it's an increasingly powerful conduit for change as well. While the drastic results we reported on in this article are incredible, the future potential of the platform is yet to be seen.

As a society, our ability to coordinate change is unprecedented. In 2019, there are forecast to be 2.77 billion social media users around the globe which means a third of the world will be connected via social networks.

Having this improved capability to band like-minded people together has the potential to do incredible things.

Related Stories

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5 Successful Campaigns Using Digital for Social Change

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Digital is a powerful medium for brands. It can also be an effective conduit for change. With societies and people across the world facing many challenges, campaigns that heighten awareness can help to change lives for the better. Due to its interactive and real-time nature, digital creates the opportunity for people to be more open and connected to each other.

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https://twitter.com/search?q=%23digitalredlining&src=typd&lang=en

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Circulation plays a huge part of creating a diverse sea of voices - one thing that comes to mind is when things go "viral" - they're shared over and over and over again, allowing people to create a sort of shared meaning around it (for example memes)

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writer chimamanda ngozi adichie on fighting the patriarchy

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Writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on fighting the patriarchy, Focus on Africa - BBC World Service

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Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wins the 2018 PEN Pinter Prize

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Fellmayer's "Disruptive Pedagogy and the Practice of Freedom" 

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Fellmayer's "Disruptive Pedagogy and the Practice of Freedom" 

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"The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions... What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change and fight it - at no matter what risk. This is the only hope that society has. This is the only way societies change."
Despite the edgy tone that accompanies ubiquitous calls for "disruption," I have yet to hear any EdTech expert or 21st century education guru refer to disruption in the transgressive sense that Baldwin was evoking 54 years ago. The difference, of course, is that Baldwin was not worried about preparing students for "the jobs of the future." Too many modern educational calls for disruption tout themselves as progressive and revolutionary, and yet ultimately do not see students so much as they see future employees. Baldwin, on the other hand, was demanding the disruption of this "ideal citizenry" through transgressive education. This was well before any app, coding system, or pedagogical trend had come along and claimed to carve out a pathway to societal utopia.

Ultimately, what is missing from these modern calls for disruption in education is an acknowledgement of the humanity of students and the societal perils many of them have to negotiate. Dissimilarly, in Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks urges teachers to contemplate "Education as the practice of freedom" as their point of departure for praxis. A phrase originating from the work of Paulo Freire, hooks writes that "education as the practice of freedom" will come easiest "to those of us...who believe that our work is not merely to share information, but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin." Transgressive education and disruptive thinking therefore begin with the soul, and not the prospective career opportunities, of students.

What does it mean, therefore, to care for a student's soul in a disruptive sense? When I first read the hooks passage, I didn't even stop to consider and contemplate the meaning behind it. I blindly believed I understood it - that educators should endeavour to practice freedom for all and if we care about students as individuals we can help them to be intellectually and spiritually free. I care about my students, I care about, understand, and respect them as individuals. I differentiate for their needs; surely I am engaging in education as the practice of freedom? Surely my inclusive and individualized practice is disruptive of traditional educational constraints?

One niggling caveat of my reading of hooks was the realisation that, for the past eight years, I have been playing it pretty safe in my career. If I as a teacher, an individual with more power than any student, have not been challenging myself to be intellectually and spiritually free in my practice, how much freedom can my students possibly experience?

In referencing Buddhist philosopher Thich Nhat Hanh, hooks states, "teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students." One might ask, is this self-actualization only about self-care, mindfulness and full mental and physical health? Or does self-actualization demand something much deeper and more difficult to acknowledge?

I am a straight, white, cis-gender, mostly able-bodied, "appropriately" secular, middle-age, middle class, highly-educated, married woman. For just about every element of societal interaction or social participation, I am the "default" or even the "preferred" option. One might think that, from the perspective of Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs, I am actually pretty close to self-actualization.

Much of my privilege provides me with considerable safety, of life, limb and personal property. Societal norms support and reinforce my accomplishments, choices and physical appearance, providing me with ample self-esteem. It appears that my "well-being," as hooks puts it, is being met. It is important to acknowledge, therefore, that I can reach Maslow's heights of self-actualization not only because I have a number of my fundamental needs met, but more importantly because I benefit from white supremacy, and from cis-het supremacy, and from the class system.

There isn't much that stands in my way in life. I will never have to worry that my students or their parents might find out I am gay. I will never feel the anxiety of being the only person of colour in my school. I worry more about the number of steps I can accumulate in a day than I am concerned about negotiating physically inaccessible buildings. I walk into my gender assigned washroom confidently and without fear. I speak my mother-tongue in cities around the world with the assurance that someone will be able to communicate with me. I always know where my next meal will come from.

I believe that to correctly understand bell hook's conception of self-actualization one has to be willing to acknowledge their privilege. If I reap the rewards of an unequal society, I cannot, as hooks requests, "be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes [my] own well-being." Without acknowledging my privilege, I can never be truly self-actualized. Without using my privilege to actively disrupt the status quo, I can never be self-actualized.

Therefore, I must admit to myself that my initial response to engaging in true disruption through "education as the practice of freedom" can be summed up as, "Well, that's just too hard." Ultimately, I am aware that to appropriately incorporate freedom in praxis is to be willing to take on some risk.

In my case risk relates to the potential sacrifice of privilege. By demanding that education be the practice of freedom I risk rocking what is, for the most part, an extremely comfortable boat. The truth is, I don't ever have to do anything to combat oppression, and my life will be just fine. However, for anyone marginalised by systemic oppression, incurring risk is an unfortunate but necessary element of speaking truth to power. On the daily.

For those of us on the frontline of K-12 teaching, "education as the practice of freedom" requires forthright discussion and action regarding subjects that are messy (at least in terms of their challenge to the agreed narrative and the cultural status quo) and this messiness can potentially make people uncomfortable, confused, upset, angry, and even potentially confrontational or worse, violent. Administrators and teachers and colleagues generally do not want to embrace the concept of education as the practice of freedom if it means rocking the boat too much.

Furthermore, it requires most of us to stop talking and to listen and promote the voices of people often marginalized in education. With the majority of teachers still being white women - and those in educational positions of power being mostly white men - the majority of us need to thoroughly educate ourselves in order to self-actualize. A small, but essential, first step is to immerse yourself in the work of as many POC, feminist, activist, and academic writers, bloggers, podcasters and tweeters as possible. I personally have been inspired by the work of educator and blogger Sherri Spelic, educator and author Rusul Alrubail, authors and journalists Ijeoma Oluo and Nikole Hannah Jones, podcaster and academic Dr. Hannah McGregor, and the authors and academics Dr. Roxane Gay, Dr. Adrienne Keene, Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom and Dr. Robin Diangelo. Ideally, this self-education would also follow the lead of Dr. Erin Stutelberg - a professor of education who teaches about racism using the pyramid of white-supremacy - by making anti-white supremacy a core part of my teaching practice. This is the level of risk-taking in teaching that I'm talking about.

So be honest. It is much more comfortable to couch our true feelings in generalities that insinuate progressive ideals than to speak truth to power. We might believe we can incrementally move the conversation towards a brighter and more inclusive realm by incorporating some kind of "universal humanistic" approach to education. Unfortunately, in such a paradigm, it's more important that people avoid feeling uncomfortable and avoid challenging the status quo until a moment arises that presents us with a real shot at "success." One day we can truly practice freedom, but for now that freedom is still merely an aspiration.

Perhaps you think me cynical - even if I need to work on checking my privilege, I am ignoring the many well-intentioned, thoughtful, engaged educators out there that want to make the world a better place. Many teachers make equity issues a core element of their teaching. Many schools consider equity to be their reason for being. I applaud their efforts and encourage them to push themselves to do even more. As Jesse Stommel stated in his keynote address at the Vancouver Digital Pedagogy Lab, "There's a shit-load more work to do... The point that you think you've made it an inclusive event is the point that you've just dead failed at making an inclusive event." The same is true of schools and classrooms - to refer to oneself as inclusive without consistently challenging that assumption is to avoid hearing voices that may disrupt our belief that our inclusive values and good intentions are enough.

Freire writes, "There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world." If, as educators, our aim is to disrupt pedagogy and present our students with an authentic educational experience, then we have to be willing to name and attack patriarchy, white supremacy, and neoliberalism. In from 2017, the incredible writer, poet and educator Clint Smith said,

"I think I fell victim to the fear of wanting to create an apolitical space in the classroom and revisiting 'A Talk to Teachers' served as a really important reminder that the very decision to not discuss certain things in your classroom, is in and of itself, a political decision. Because my students' lives are impacted by political decisions every single day, and I think it's important for teachers to think about ways to try to facilitate and create a space where they can engage in those conversations in a meaningful way."

I have fallen victim to the same fear. As a teacher in an international school, my privilege, and the privilege of my students, has made the discussion of social and political concerns seem to lack urgency. It's not as though we don't tackle serious world issues such as child poverty, slave labour, access to clean water and the Sustainable Development Goals. From the perspective of a good, liberal, international curriculum, a focus on such topics is unequivocally important. It is easy, however, to present such topics from the perspective of a saviour and never consider our roles as perpetrators of inequality. What a difference it would make if we talked to our students frankly about the globally damaging effects of patriarchy and white supremacy. What if we critiqued political or international action (such as the SDGs) through an examination of neoliberal policy? Imagine if it was common practice to teach K-12 history through the lens of post-colonialism. The typical response to such perspectives is to label them "too political" or "too agenda driven" - as though a universal humanistic approach provides a bias-less, agenda-free educational platform. If we are honest with ourselves, as Clint Smith is, to avoid openly speaking and acting against oppressive forces (patriarchy, white supremacy, neoliberalism) is not to be apolitical but rather to shore up such forces.

To interpret bell hook's definition of "freedom" is to acknowledge that education in its current form advantages or disadvantages people to different degrees. Consider Kimberlé Crenshaw's definition of intersectionality as a weight or influence originating from systems of power that affect individuals with varying degrees of pressure. From the perspective of intersectionality, schools, curriculum and pedagogy are bound to the same systemic forces that perpetuate systemic inequality. hooks and Friere's understanding of freedom is an unparalleled level of disruption; it demands a de-centering of the standard narrative within society and education. Despite the best intentions of schools and individual praxis, without an acknowledged and proactive deconstruction of power structures, education cannot deflate the pressure of an oppressive system. "Education as the practice of freedom" demands that self-actualized educators open and centre the conversation and the cannon around marginalised voices and their narratives.

For those of us knowledgeable of bell hooks, Paulo Freire, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Clint Smith and James Baldwin, and who get the problematic strains within " the business of education," the ideas I am unpacking are nothing new. To embrace "education as the practice of freedom" is to understand that there is no legitimate conversation about disruption in education that doesn't include a focus on fighting oppression. Ultimately, what all teachers want is to provide a profound educational experience for students. In order to genuinely pursue such a profound educational experience, those of us with considerable privilege need to heed Baldwin's words and begin deliberately incurring risk.

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Disruptive Pedagogy and the Practice of Freedom | Hybrid Pedagogy

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"The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions... What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish.

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Social Media sites like Facebook and YouTube

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Social Media sites like Facebook and YouTube

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One place that I see intertextuality and diversity of languages in in the scope of Social Media. For example, some of the blogs I follow on Tumblr are made and maintained by people in other countries, and this gives me some insight on life in other countries.

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Demonstrators rallied at City Hall Plaza in Boston Monday to demand that Senators reject Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanuagh's bid for a seat on the nation's highest court, citing decades-old sexual assault and misconduct allegations leveled at the appellate judge.

Protesters began converging shortly before 10 a.m. on the plaza, where Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, a key figure in the nomination battle, was slated to appear later in the day as part of the Forbes Under 30 Summit. The rally ended around 11:30 a.m.

Chants of "hey, hey, ho, ho, Kavanaugh has got to go" and "The people united, will never be defeated," as well as "when I say Kava, you say no" shortly before the speaking portion of the event was slated to begin.

Erin Swauger, an Emerson College senior and one of the student organizers of the rally, told the crowd that she was "honored to be a part of this movement" and "honored to fight for survivors everywhere." She said demonstrators were raising "a voice against Brett Kavanaugh."

"He is unhinged, he does not deserve to serve the American people, and he does not deserve a lifetime appointment," she said.

Demonstrators rallied outside City Hall Plaza in Boston Monday to demand that senators reject Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanuagh.

Her words were echoed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Boston University graduate who stunned New York's political establishment with her recent Democratic primary victory over a powerful incumbent in that state.

Ocasio-Cortez said sexual assault is an "abuse of power" and one of the most "serious, serious" allegations that a public servant can face.

"It is [targeted at] the young, it is the interns, it is the immigrants, it is the trans," Ocasio-Cortez said.

Noting that Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford had to provide their accounts of sexual harassment and assault to mostly male Senate panels, Ocasio-Cortez said, "Can you imagine if Brett Kavanaugh had to sit before of a panel of 11 women of color deciding his fate?"

She also issued a warning to lawmakers nationwide who protect perpetrators: "We will end your career by electing survivors to office."

Another speaker, Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley, a Democratic congressional candidate who's also a sexual assault survivor, thanked the women who confronted Flake in an elevator in the Senate building on Friday. Pressley also maintained that Kavanaugh is not entitled to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.

Pressley said she's being advised to avoid coming across as an "angry black woman" on the campaign trail.

"Well, I am angry," she said. "And I am outraged. Because this is outrageous!"

Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon also spoke and told Flake to "vote no on Kavanaugh" when the full Senate decides on the nomination. Rippon also reminded the crowd to "Go and vote" in the midterms.

As speakers addressed the crowd, some demonstrators held signs that depicted Kavanaugh's face and the words, "Kava Nope." Others held placards emblazoned with the words "Kava NO" and "end rape culture,"

Three women have recently accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault and misconduct dating back to his high school and college years, allegations he's adamantly denied.

Swauger said during an earlier interview Monday that the rally was "a reminder to [Flake] that this is a really big decision."

She said "there are a lot of survivors, a lot of women, a lot of people across the country that are relying on [Flake's] vote. So this is to make sure he understands the power and the impact of what he can do."

Annie Noel, 19, an Emerson sophomore and another student organizer of the protest, said advocates will "continue to press" Flake on his actions.

"[Flake] actually said yesterday that if Kavanaugh was proven to be lying, that he would not vote for him. Kavanaugh did lie," Noel said. "We want the results that he is promising."

An emotional Victoria Kichuke, 34, of Belmont, held a sign that said "Liars and Conspiracy Theorists have no place on the SCOTUS."

"To see someone like [Kavanaugh accuser] Dr. Ford stand up, who was so clearly terrified of what she was about to do, because there was no upside for her - she did it because she is a citizen and she felt this exceptional duty to do her duty as a citizen and it was so powerful and uncomfortable to watch," Kichuke said. "If she can do something like that I can come and hold a sign and use my voice and my physical presence to do what I can."

Another demonstrator, Anne Josephson, 66, held a sign that said "Truth Matters."

"I find it appalling how resistant the Republicans have been to getting to the bottom of this," Josephson said. "I find it appalling that the Republicans have hidden Judge Kavanaugh's record. It deprives the Senate of their constitutional responsibility to advise and consent and the restrictions that are currently being placed on this FBI investigation make me very concerned that what the White House is doing is simply turning this into a fig leaf. I just think it's important to come out and let politicians know how people feel. It's a genuine concern."

Flake's visit to Boston comes after he was thrust into the national spotlight Friday when news cameras captured two sex assault victims tearfully confronting him in an elevator on Capitol Hill before a crucial committee vote on Kavanaugh's nomination. Those were the same women whom Pressley thanked during Monday's rally.

Earlier Friday, Flake had issued a statement saying he would back Kavanaugh. But when he voted to move the Kavanaugh nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee after the elevator confrontation, he said his full support in the Senate would be contingent upon the completion of a limited FBI investigation into sexual assault allegations against the judge.

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh was also among the attendees at Monday's rally. He stood with protesters around 10:20 a.m., high-fiving them and shaking hands.

"Today we're sending a message to the U.S. Senate: we're paying attention, and we will stand up for what is right," Walsh tweeted. "We believe survivors of sexual assault, and we stand alongside them. Brett Kavanaugh and Jeff Flake, listen to the American people. #BelieveSurvivors #StopKavanaugh."

The location for Flake's Boston remarks had to be moved from an Emerson theater, amid security concerns due to Flake's high-profile role in Kavanaugh's confirmation proceedings.

The protest on the plaza ended with a choir's stirring rendition of "I Can't Keep Quiet," a ballad that has become a popular rallying cry of the #MeToo movement.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the gender makeup of the Senate panel questioning Christine Blasey Ford.

Meghan E. Irons and Michael Levenson of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.

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City Hall Plaza protest calls on Sen. Flake to reject Kavanaugh for Supreme Court - The Boston Globe

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Demonstrators rallied at City Hall Plaza in Boston Monday to demand that Senators reject Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanuagh's bid for a seat on the nation's highest court, citing decades-old sexual assault and misconduct allegations leveled at the appellate judge. Protesters began converging shortly before 10 a.m.

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If literacy has traditionally been a project of restriction, a mode of gatekeeping and of valuing certain knowledge systems over others, in what ways do you see media technologies opening spaces for languages of hybridity and linguistic diversity to be valued? What role do you think circulation plays in creating such intertextuality of voices? In what ways do you think this hybridization of voices, languages from so many disparate contexts, can work to alter dominant power systems in place? Are there certain songs, tweets, images, videos, articles, etc. that you can think of that speak to this intertextuality and hybridization of language?  If you'd like, you can write about the image/video/gif/etc. that you post, or you can let the post carry its own rhetorical messages.

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Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. It is the interconnection between similar or related works of literature that reflect and influence an audience's interpretation of the text. Intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody.